The Willard Hodges Fellowship enabled Julianna Mouat the time and flexibility to conduct in-depth review to investigate new research goals.
At the beginning my fifth year of my Ph.D., I was at a bit of a crossroads – I had finished two projects for publication and was beginning to seek out my “next step” after graduate school. For the years leading up to this point, I conducted research in a variety of areas spanning from photochemistry, materials science, and organic synthesis. With less than a year remaining in my Ph.D. studies, I was determined to figure out a way that I could merge many of these concepts together into one research project. Additionally, as I had mostly worked on projects in their later stages, I was eager to embrace the scientific challenge of beginning a brand-new project.
Working to fully immerse myself in a new research area required not only long hours in the lab, but additional time to conduct in-depth literature reviews to inform my design of experiments. The flexibility of time and resources afforded to me by the Willard Hodges Fellowship enabled me to focus solely on these research goals. In this last year, I have successfully applied photochemical principles to develop a carbon-carbon bond-forming reaction that can be used to synthesize ubiquitous amino acid-derived small molecules.
During this later stretch of graduate school, I feel I have grown immensely as a scientist and have been able to challenge myself to become more independent as I start to make the transition out of academia. I will begin my professional career as a Research Scientist at Dow Chemical Company, and I am heading into this new chapter with a newfound confidence in my scientific skillset that I was able to develop specifically during the 2025-2026 year.